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More children across the US would likely be diagnosed with high lead levels under recommended guidelines approved this week by a federal advisory panel. The panel voted to lower by 30 percent, to 3.5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, the threshold at which a child is considered to have elevated lead. It’s a sign of increased awareness and concern about how harmful even low levels of lead can be for growing kids. And it could allow public health agencies to identify more sources of lead contamination. (Robbins, 1/20)

Health departments around the state for years have struggled to investigate childhood lead poisoning cases and make sure homes with dangerous levels of the heavy metal are fixed or remain vacant so they can't do more harm. According to data on the performance of more than a dozen of the state's health districts with authority to conduct lead poisoning investigations. (Dissell, 1/21)

Cleveland isn't the only lead poisoning program in the state that's struggled to respond to lead poisoning cases. For the more than 2,500 cases that were investigated from 2011 to 2015, hazards were found more than 65 percent of the time and Lead Hazard Control orders were issued requiring the property owner to remediate the problem. Those orders were only followed about 35 percent of the time. (Dissell, 1/21)

There is no measurable amount of C8 flowing from taps in the six Ohio River water districts that settled a lawsuit with DuPont over the toxic chemical that the company used to make Teflon. Along 75 miles of the Ohio River - from Parkersburg, West Virginia, to Pomeroy, Ohio - water from wells contaminated with C8, or perfluorooctanoic acid, is being filtered through granulated activated carbon before reaching taps in homes and businesses. That's good. The chemical has been tied to a number of cancers and health disorders. (Rinehart, 1/22)